As a small business owner I can never really be off-duty, even on maternity leave. I still need to commission projects to subcontactors, monitor business finances and be on the lookout for new clients. My dismay at one client recently deciding not to renew their contract was counterbalanced by the thrill of a new, larger corporation expressing interest in my company’s services. This interest led to an initial phone call one morning when Tinytoes was safely at nursery and Microtoes was quietly napping. In turn, the phone call led to a request for a face-to-face meeting at the firm’s offices up in Moorgate, East London.
What would normally have been a run-of-the-mill trip up to the city transpired to be an epic journey with military scale planning. Given I had always purely breastfed Microtoes directly and not yet given her expressed milk, it was decided that DaddyO would take the day off work and travel up to London with me and Microtoes. I would feed her on the train, head to the meeting and then feed her again after the meeting. Simple. Or so I thought.
I suffered a moment of mild panic when my contact at the London-based firm emailed to say she needed to change the day of our meeting because they had to rehearse for an important webinar. Not only had I paid for my Paris-based colleague M to come over by Eurostar to join me for the meeting, but DaddyO had already booked his time off work. Without sounding too desperate, I eventually managed to convince them to rejig their schedule to fit us in on the original date. M would now arrive halfway through the meeting, but at least she would be there for some of the time.
As the day drew near, I began to worry Microtoes would last the duration of my absence without milk. She was going through a 4 month growth spurt, feeding every 1-3 hours in the day and every 3-4 hours at night. So, I dug out the expressing equipment, which I carefully washed and sterilised, before expressing out enough breastmilk to last her an entire afternoon. Just in case.
Instead of preparing for the meeting itself, I found myself preparing the logistics of leaving my baby with my husband: spare clothes (for her not him), spare nappies, wipes, toys, blankets, baby sling so he could go to the gents without leaving her (with strict instructions that she should be inward not outward facing)… I began littering the house with notes so as not to forget the expressed milk, train times and the time we needed to leave the house for the station – I allowed 45 minutes to drive from our house to the station carpark alone as we would need to unload the buggy and all the paraphernalia, buy the tickets and get onto the train.
I had to rethink my wardrobe too as my normal business attire was woefully too tight for my postnatal body. Thank goodness I had some smart business clothes left over from my pre-marathon running days; when I was less skinny than my pre-pregnancy days. I manged to squeeze into a shiny black pencil skirt from Whistles and thankfully found just one loose-fitting, smart red jacket that would fasten over my milk-engorged breasts. I wore a breastfeeding top which would stay hidden underneath.
D day arrived and we left the house at 10.15am allowing plenty of time for me to get to my 1pm meeting. I would leave DaddyO and Microtoes in one of the baby-friendly cafés I had researched in London Bridge and then take the tube two stops to my meeting in Moorgate.
When we got to the station I realised the train was direct to London Victoria, not London Bridge, so we would need to change at East Croydon. I decided to feed Microtoes just before changing trains as I figured the next train would be crowded with commuters.
A few seconds after starting the feed we heard that familiar low rumble akin to a jet plane taking off. We instantly knew it would be a messy nappy and DaddyO gallantly headed off in the direction of the train toilets, to spare any literal fallout onto my smart clothes.
As the stations flitted by and the train edged its way closer to East Croydon I began to worry I would be leaving the train with DaddyO and Microtoes still in the train toilets.
He emerged in the nick of time, looking flustered and gripping a half-dressed baby (I hadn’t expected the change of clothes to come into play so soon) for us to grab the baby paraphernalia and finish off dressing her on the platform of East Croydon station.
Things started to go wrong when we realised the onward train to London Bridge was 30 minutes delayed. Thanks to all the extra time I had allowed, I would still be at my meeting in time but it would be tight.
The train eventually pulled up to the platform, 2 minutes ahead of its predicted delay. We jumped on and sat down, surprised that not more people were piling on. Moments later I twigged we were on the wrong train. It was heading to Victoria. I let out a few expletives and emailed the prospective client to let them know I would be running late.
It was actually taking M less time to travel from Paris to the meeting than it was taking me, who lives just 30 miles outside London.
Suffice to say I arrived late and flustered to the meeting, having travelled 8 stops on two different tube lines. Not the greatest of starts.
And so it was that nearly five months of maternity leave, three sleepless nights in a row and a desperate dash across London on the tube had left my mind slightly cloudy. My company overview began in too much detail – so, halfway through I decided to condense it by describing the five main facets of the business in a punchy, bullet point format.
The three people sitting opposite me picked up their pens and began to take notes. But when I got to point 4 I realised with a sinking feeling that I’d run out of facets. Maybe I’d grouped together some of the facets. Or maybe there were more that I’d forgotten about. In any case there were three faces looking up at me, pens poised, so I improvised and blurted out a few services we used to do in the past while they scribbled away earnestly.
M arrived only 10 minutes after me – luckily she missed the painful company overview – and I was glad we were now two against three.
The meeting finished abruptly owing to the webinar rehearsals and we were told the company would be in touch following its budget planning meeting next week.
I had planned to invite M back to London Bridge (now Victoria..) for a coffee and introduce her to Microtoes, but before heading into Moorgate station I gave DaddyO a quick call to see how things were going. I heard shrill screaming and then my husband’s normally calm voice telling me to ‘come back now! “What’s happened?” I asked, panic rising. “She won’t take the bottle and she’s hungry and screaming the place down. Just get here now!”
I turned to M “I’m so sorry I have to go…” before hotfooting it as fast as I could back across London to Victoria, my heart pounding at the thought of my baby in distress. I found DaddyO having left the coffee shop, was pacing around the station with Microtoes now fast asleep in the buggy.
I had barely been apart from her for 2 hours – and the meeting had only lasted 1 hour – but we had spent an entire day running around like headless chickens. I marvel at how complicated it is to juggle babies and work.
Thankfully SuperGranny was on hand to pick up Tinytoes from nursery – I’m not sure we could have handled both babies on our elaborate journey to London and back.
Calamitous Mummy 